Review #824: 'The Rover' (2014)

Australian director David Michod's follow-up to 2010's thrilling and operatic Animal Kingdom is set, as the opening titles inform us, 'ten years after the collapse'. Just what the 'collapse' is is unclear, whether it be social, economic or moral. But what the film does show us is an Australia sparse of population (though the Chinese seem to be doing well), and where the only currency of any real value is the American dollar. It's a hard land, not too dissimilar to Oz's current outback, and when we meet our (anti)hero, Eric (Guy Pearce), he is certainly distressed about something.

He wanders into a shack for a drink and supplies. The film then cuts to a speeding car where a bunch of criminals led by Henry (Scoot McNairy - quickly becoming cinema's most reliable supporting actor) are arguing over something gone awry. Tensions soon turn to violence and the squabble leads to the car crashing just outside the bar where Eric is. With their car damaged, they quickly steal Eric's. It soon becomes apparent that this was their biggest mistake, as Eric quickly pursues them demanding his car back. After he is forced away at gunpoint, Eric comes across the injured Rey (Robert Pattinson), who just so happens to be Henry's mentally retarded brother.

With the global economy locked in a seemingly endless yo-yo, and the unknown, lurking threats from the Middle East and North Korea always in the headlines, the global apocalypse seems a fitting setting for modern film-makers to comment on the current state of humanity. Cormac McCarthy's novel and John Hillcoat's subsequent 2009 film adaptation The Road comes immediately to mind, where the cold, eternally dark world is scoured by merciless cannibals. In The Rover, it's every man for himself. Even our supposed hero Eric thinks nothing of shooting a police officer in the back of the head when he threatens to get in the way of Eric recovering his car. Humanity no longer has any value.

But there's a whiff of seen-it-all-before with The Rover. As well as the aforementioned The Road, other films come to mind such as the Australian western The Proposition (2005), which told a story of man's primitive natural instinct for violence against a bleak and blood-stained backdrop in a far more gripping way. Pearce is as reliable as ever, but Pattinson - admirable in his desire to break free of his Twilight image - doesn't seem to trust his ability and over-acts. In his quieter, subtler moments, he proves to be a fine actor, but he needs to take Kirk Lazarus's advice from Tropic Thunder (2008) and never go full retard. At it's best, The Rover is hypnotic. At it's worst, it's plodding. Yet it remains unsettling throughout.

Directed by: David Michôd

Starring: Guy Pearce, Robert Pattinson, Scoot McNairy

Country: Australia/USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie